Climate Earth, Inc., a leading provider of integrated systems, data and services for sustainability management, today announced its online Natural Capital Management System (NCMS) – an enterprise tool that provides visibility and insight to actively manage the risks and opportunities associated with natural capital dependencies (i.e., forestland use, water consumption and greenhouse gas emissions) across the value chain.
Natural capital comprises the earth’s natural assets (soil, air, water, flora and fauna) and the ecosystem services resulting from them. Our world economy depends on healthy and functioning ecosystem services. Unfortunately, these ecosystem services typically lack a market value and thus, are often priced at zero, leading to degradation and mismanagement. If these ecosystem services become too degraded, a productive economy — along with the businesses that support it — is no longer viable. This realization transforms the perception of natural capital into a strategic business asset that must be wisely managed, just like other valuable assets.
Natural capital accounting is the process of placing a dollar value on a company’s natural capital impacts in a way that is consistent and scientifically valid. A Natural Capital Management System assigns value to these externalized environmental costs and integrates it within a company’s financial system, making the data available in an organizational and operational context.
Climate Earth developed NCMS (http://www.climateearth.com/ncms/) to take companies beyond just measurement to management of risks from consumption of natural capital assets. With NCMS, senior executives and managers of business units can quickly gain insight to questions such as, what are my department’s natural capital dependencies? Are impacts from water consumption or land use more critical? In what country and tier of the supply chain are these risks the highest?
Shared cloud-based access to data drives collaboration across the enterprise and empowers businesses to make informed economic decisions and effectively manage natural capital resources. “As a construction company engaged in large commercial projects, we believe it is critical to understand both the financial and hidden natural capital costs of every project,” said Phil Williams, Vice President of Sustainability at Webcor Builders. “Climate Earth’s NCMS gives us the ability to collaborate up and down the value chain with owners and suppliers providing the visibility and insight to make smarter choices and build better environments.”
“Construction is a dynamic business. Every project requires setting up a new onsite manufacturing facility, and building a new supply chain. Like an automobile or other complex product, every building contains thousands of parts. We are able to support these complex and rapidly changing environments. This is key to our ability to efficiently integrate Climate Earth’s NCMS with a company’s business system and quickly tailor our platform to any vertical,” said Chris Erickson, CEO of Climate Earth.